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The government will never get it. *THEY* are the zone of lawlessness. It is logical that the vast majority of those outside the zone, READ most of the users of this technology, want to protect themselves from those zones no matter where they are.

I am not surprised in the least. The National Security Letters are really nothing more than an end-run around the courts. I'm actually surprised that the FBI even bothers with the FISA court to obtain warrants to go on its fishing expeditions.

I'm not a big fan of Sony (although I like their electronic products because of their high quality) or big companies in general. However, a breach of this size could literally destroy the company if the amount of information that leaked yet to be revealed is even worse than what has already been revealed. The litigation nightmare this could cause in the US is appalling in itself but that could just be the tip of the iceberg because of all the corporate secrets that are now out in the open (or will be).

My diary is written on paper and in longhand. It's the ultimate in keeping my innermost thoughts away from those who should not know them. It's immune from PRISM and the other NSA civil rights atrocities.

There is a definite cognitive connection between writing by hand and brain function. For example, I am a better writer when I write by hand. Furthermore, I enjoy the task better because I can to make the cursive squiggles. I use a fountain pen which makes it even more enjoyable. But then I am a luddite. I write letters by hand and put them in the mail. I do it partially because I write prisoners but I also have regular correspondents. It's much better than e-mail.

Ebola suffers should be required to keep Cowboy Neal happy. If that is not satisfactory, they can get to know my evil back cat, Satan with a fur coat.. Hmmm... maybe that's not such a good idea. I am very fond of my evil cat.

if you have an invoice or legal paper you can send deliver it yourself, you can send it by private held company like TNT, UPS, whatever but only when you send it via Polish Post (national operator) it gets so called the power of postal stamp. Legally if you choose the right delivery type it is valid as delivery in court. Such postage is still deeply embodied in legal system and I think it has some merit.

Exactly. In the U.S., many federal and state laws assume that the United States Postal Service will be there. Furthermore, the day the item is postmarked is, for most legal documents, considered to be the day the court receives it. Thus, if you have to have something filed by a certain date, you can delay (like most people do) and wait until the absolute last minute, run to the post office, and get a manual postmark put on the envelope, the only way you're going to get a guaranteed legible one in the U.S. Furthermore, courts rely upon the postal service to deliver legal mail. Federal courts allow you to file legal paperwork (as well as get copies of it) online and some state courts are slowly moving in this direction, but there will always have to be a way to get a piece of paper to someone who is a luddite or, is in jail or prison and does not have access to the Internet, and vice versa, since Americans have a constitutional right to access to the courts.

I've wondered about that myself given that the stamps the post office uses today look like some of the Christmas and Easter Seals I remember putting on greeting cards as a kid. As I recall from some discussion I had many years ago, the postage processing machinery actually does not know exactly how much postage is on the envelope. All it really knows is that there is some kind of stamp there and that it has not been canceled. I'm not sure how metered mail is processed but there must be a reason why the post office would prefer that metered mail not be mixed in with stamped mail.

So, the answer is probably "yes", you could fake stamps but if you did how much money would you really save by doing it? You'd be better of running off some tens and twenties on the local Kinko's color copier.

I doubt it, at least not anytime in the near future. Stamps do have some interesting and necessary purposes for existence.

I write people in prisons. While some prisons and jails have e-mail systems in place through which you can write an inmate and, in some cases, the inmate can write back (Federal prisons being the best example of this) these are usually funded by a "tax" paid by the inmates in some way. For those inmates who don't want to use such services or cannot (California prisoners being one in that they don't have access to such systems), U.S. mail and stamped envelops are the only way to go. So, as long prisons don't have some other inexpensive way for inmates to communicate with those on the other side of the razor wire, stamps are here to stay.

Incidentally, because I write to prisoners I learn all sorts of things about life there. Since prisoners are not allowed to carry money, they use a barter system to buy and sell things. There are four kinds of currency in jails and prisons in the U.S: ramen noodle soups, instant coffee wrapped up in sandwich wrap, cigarettes (if they are permitted), and postage stamps. Think of the economic depression that would occur in the prison economy if stamps disappeared!

I wish it were the case in California. I bugged our bedroom with my iMac. I set it up so that it looked asleep so she would not suspect that I had a hidden sound recording program running. It caught the first ten minutes of the blow job before the program reached its limit, but that was all I needed to confront her on it. Unfortunately, California has no-fault divorce so I had to pay alimony even though I had the goods on her. I will never get married again without a prenuptial agreement that is rock-solid.